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I take my mother out of nursing home in upstate NY for several hours every Sunday. I am her Health Proxy and POA. Nursing home is now refusing to give me her narcotic pain medication creating a situation whereby I will have to choose between taking her out for home visits or keeping her pain free. Is this legal to deny POA Meds requested a week in advance?

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I realize you have a solution now, but it seems to be a cumbersome solution at best, considering you will only have your mother out for a few hours. What I was wondering is, could they give her the Norco before you leave? Would you be gone so long that it would lose its effectiveness before you returned her to the nursing home? I would be nervous being responsible for that much of a controlled substance. Could they just Xerox the drug info that's on the blister pack?
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This is very frustrating but the nurse who gives out the medication has her license on the line if she does not observe the patient taking it.
I would feel safer if the Dr prescribed enough tablets for a month's outings and you had those in your care. Only a one month supply of narcotics is allowed to be dispensed in NYS. If the patient was at home they could have a whole darn bottle of the things. It can take an horror the patient to receive something in a hospital if it is not already in the drug cart. First the nurse has to locate the Dr and he has to write the order which then goes to the pharmacy who can take their sweet time delivering it to the floor.
Avalon you seem to have found a way round all the road blocks so don't talk about it too much.
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Narcotics in the nursing home setting are highly controlled. The New York State Department of Health will side with the nursing home. They are not denying your mother her narcotics. They are denying to give them to you.
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The nursing home called and explained situation shortly after I posted the question. In order for pharmacy to release narcotic to me the Dr would have to call in individual script every weekend. Since nurses station had blister pack of Norco already released to my mother on the floor each weekend the nurse and I will count number of tablets in pack and they will allow me to sign out entire blister pack and return pack and record count again. They have to release entire blister pack instead of one dose in a bag because it has all the drug info on the pack. I believe I read this listed elsewhere on this site or another internet site that entire blister pack is released.

Thanks for responses but the answer I got was not accurate at least for this nursing home in Upstate NY
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I take my mother out for entire afternoon and through dinner. Her pain is managed by Tylenol during day but by end of day around dinner she requires something stronger. Therefore, I cannot have them give her Norco earlier in the day. I agree that Xeroxing info would be a far better idea than being responsible for blister pack but at this point I am happy to have a solution because in the last 3 plus years it has been extremely difficult staying on top of the endless number of issues that one encounters in a nursing home. A family member is there every day to ensure that our mother is receiving the best care possible and this has not been an easy task - in fact, it had been a constant struggle. Since NY state gets a grade F rating for nursing homes on a national level there is no point in moving her because they are all rated fairly low in the city I live in.
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Avalon, I'm glad you've got this sorted in a way that will work, even if it is a complete song-and-dance - all that palaver for a couple of Tramadol or whatever??

It's the result of legislators with good intentions imposing procedures that unfortunately have limited effect on the *abuse* of controlled substances, but make life extremely frustrating and difficult for legitimate *users* of controlled substances. I well remember almost swallowing my own tongue with frustration when my son was in terrible pain from a broken leg while his hospital nurses were going through their Morphine Pas-de-Deux dance, which seemed to take forever!!! You can appreciate that these checks are important and still find them needlessly obstructive in practice.
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